I remember USA Today a couple of years back announcing that the podcast was back and booming once again. At the time I was a bit skeptical as I had seen the early growth and decline of podcasts— downloadable audio broadcasts— in the early internet days. But I'm skeptical no more. The Pew Research Center noted that in 2015 the number of Americans who listen to a podcast at least once a month had doubled since 2008 and one-third of Americans have now listened to a podcast. Plus, the number of podcasts downloaded in 2014 (a total of 2.6 billion) grew 36 percent over 2013.

Why bother with a podcast? Learn more in this issue of Promotional Consultant Today.

With the resurgence of this medium continuing into today, smart marketers are adding podcasts back into their content marketing plans. Brendan Cournoyer of the Content Marketing Institute offers these three reasons why podcasts should be a part of your marketing mix:

1. Generate Guest Content. Guest content is a wonderful way to expand your listenership (the guest will bring in his/her followers as new listeners), provide an independent perspective from thought leaders that your brand can be associated with and bring a fresh voice or perspective to your content. The problem is that many potential guests aren't willing to sit down and write content for you. They are more likely to have a 15-minute phone conversation with you that you can turn into a podcast.

2. Can Be Turned Around Quickly. One problem for many content marketers is generating enough unique content in the time available to create it. Since podcasts are short conversations that are edited with easy editing software and uploaded as a file, most organizations find they create podcasts much faster than mediums that require graphic design, writing, editing or printing.

3. Repurposed As Written Content. Not every follower of your brand consumes your media in the same way. Some prefer listening, others watching and others reading. The transcript of your podcast can be quickly and easily transcribed as a written blog post or print piece, providing the content to followers in two different formats— one that appeals to those who want to listen while driving or exercising and the other to those who want to read, in addition to providing SEO to your website or blog.

Read PCT tomorrow and Wednesday for steps to create your own podcasts.

Source: Brendan Cournoyer is a content manager at Brainshark and contributor to the Content Marketing Institute website.